All-electric presses help EPC win auto work
West Des Moines, Iowa-based mostly Engineered Plastic Elements Inc. (EPC) is selecting up new perform as it adjustments in excess of its fleet of 500 injection molding devices to all-electric presses.
The added benefits of repeatability, power efficiency and dependability outweigh the preliminary expense financial investment, according to organization officials, who have ordered 200 presses in the past six decades, all designed by Japan Metal Is effective The united states Inc. (JSW).
Established in 1994 by President and CEO Reza Kargarzadeh, EPC started creating elements for the automotive business with 3 injection molding devices ahead of developing into the appliance, health care, aerospace and major devices markets.
EPC now operates out of 18 locations in 10 states and Mexico that give injection molding, two-shot injection molding, vacuum forming, solid skin, urethane foaming and portray.
With $310 million in once-a-year revenue for 2021, EPC ranked 31st among North American injection molding processors, according to Plastics Information‘ newest rating.
For the automotive field, EPC produces easy shoot-and-ship parts and sophisticated instrument panel, door and HVAC assemblies for Ford, GM, Toyota and Honda.
Kargarzadeh didn’t know much about JSW presses right until 2002, when EPC obtained Palo Plastics in Palo, Iowa.
“We recognized that these equipment — they just run,” Kargarzadeh, an engineer who focused on products design and style and tooling and retains several patents in the plastic business, reported in a circumstance analyze.
While regular hydraulic injection molding equipment at present make up most of the U.S. marketplace share, the need for all-electrical versions proceeds to attain momentum with processors like EPC.
The need to have for EPC to shift to all-electrical machines became obvious when the enterprise faced troubles manufacturing an HVAC doorway for a big automotive client.
The HVAC door is located within the dashboard and it makes it possible for the passage of air from the air conditioner or heater. The 253.090-millimeter-very long-component demanded tight tolerances within just .3 mm, which is significantly less than the thickness of a hair.
EPC workers couldn’t get the portion certified for dimensional repeatability on the hydraulic press, in accordance to Bob Bachman, EPC vice president of sales and plan management.
“It was incredibly demanding. We had been only ready to get to about .5 mm with the hydraulic machine amongst pieces,” Bachman said. “It was a necessity, and if we would not have been capable to satisfy it, we would not have been successful.”
EPC then sampled the section on a 500-ton all-electric powered JSW press.
“When we ran it on that equipment, we bought it to the customer’s specs,” Kargarzadeh mentioned.
As a consequence, EPC now creates 28,000 of the HVAC elements per 7 days or 1.2 million parts a 12 months, producing more than $2 million in sales.
To clearly show the parts are within the suitable technical specs, EPC collects day-to-day data for automotive consumers that demonstrates the foreseeable future functionality of a approach (CPK information) and how the procedure has executed in the earlier (PPK knowledge) to exhibit the sections are inside the satisfactory specs. The comparisons also can be made use of to discover variations.
“Our knowledge is that we get far better CPK and PPK with JSW machines,” Kargarzadeh explained, including that EPC also utilizes a coordinated measuring device (CMM) and scanners to take precise measurements and verify knowledge.
